37 weeks

Today marks 37 weeks of this pregnancy, which is a significant number because as someone planning a home birth, 37 weeks is the "all clear" point where if I go into labor, I can deliver at home and not have to go to the hospital.

It almost doesn't seem real to be at this point already! I remember last year when we found out we were expecting in June (the baby we lost), realizing head on how much I was thinking about 2013 as the year we had to really step out in faith and trust that God was going to provide what was needed to do what he was calling us to do. And that in that, my subconscious was thinking "and then we'll be able to just take it easy for a while - just get through 2013 and things will go back to 'normal'." There's nothing like a new baby to push your mind forward, and recognize that this is normal and I wouldn't want it any other way. The best times of my life have always been the times when I have been the most in need of God - where if he doesn't come through, I'm sunk. And I've never been sunk.

After the emotional ups and downs of our June baby's fleeting presence in our lives, followed right away by this  baby (and I love the dates - August 2nd the Bulgarian courts declared Krassimir to be our son, August 5th we celebrated our 13th wedding anniversary, August 8th we found out we were expecting a baby! Bam, bam, bam.)

And then we spent all of fall increasingly suspicious that we may be expecting twins! Wouldn't that have been something! It's one thing to have an adoption and a new baby within six months, and something entirely different to have an adoption and twins within six months. Especially when twins would have meant that our current largest vehicle would not be big enough for one parent to take all of the children somewhere. (Don't know why that was such a big deal in my mind, but it was.) (It was also a little overwhelming to me to think that I could potentially have five of my seven children in diapers come April if I had twins and Rinnah still wasn't potty trained!) But there were plenty of indicators that made twins a real possibility. The more pregnancies one has, the more likely one is to have twins. This was my fifth pregnancy. If you've recently miscarried, you're more likely to have twins. Check. Twins tend to intensify morning sickness - I was significantly more "sick" with this pregnancy than I had been with any of my other ones. Then there's the genetic factor - I've got that, too, with my maternal grandfather being a fraternal twin - that's the most significant genetic connection for increasing odds of twins. Older mothers, too, are more likely to have twins, and though at 34 years old I'm not old, I'm also not particularly young. Then, at one of our prenatal visits, we heard a heart beat in two locations and couldn't track between. That in itself is not evidence of twins, but added to all the other bits, was one more factor in the leaning.

When we had our 20 week ultrasound, I was very, very curious about what we would find out. And when the technician only found one baby, and was looking to make sure there weren't more, it was tough to hear - I'd so entertained the possibility of twins, that it almost felt like we were losing another baby.

And yet at the same time, when you've been preparing mentally for twins, and then find out there's only one baby, it sure makes one baby seem a lot more doable! (And to top it off, it was within a week of the ultrasound that Rinnah made the definite switch to being free from diapers, and has been going strong ever since! Now I'm only anticipating three of my six children to be in diapers come April. That sounds way better than five of seven!)

So I see the abundant grace of God through those days of waiting and wondering - he is so good to prepare us - so gentle with us.

This year brought new uncertainty as a week after the big respiratory flu went through our house, I began showing symptoms of a rare condition called cholestasis of pregnancy, which is essentially pregnancy-induced liver failure, and raises the risks of the baby being still born, especially in the last few weeks of the pregnancy. Knowing that the condition is rare did nothing to persuade us that it wouldn't be me - we live with ultra-rare every day. And as far as I (or my midwives) know, there really isn't any other good explanation for intensely itchy soles of your feet at night when you're pregnant. I was showing a few other symptoms, so we scheduled some bloodwork for the following week, and they sent me home with some herbal supplements to address both the symptoms and also to target liver and gall bladder functioning.

The lab results came back showing that some of my liver levels were indeed high, but not crazy high, so the plan was to retest in three weeks and continue to monitor symptoms.

So we were once again living with uncertainty. A common course of action with cholestasis is inducing labor early, and possibly even using steroids to hasten lung development so the baby can be delivered early. This would obviously require a birth at a hospital - something I have never done. But beyond that, it was a sobering reminder once again that life is not a guarantee - that at any moment it can be gone. And it was really tough to be thinking that this dear little baby may not make it, either.

As the weeks of waiting passed, my symptoms gradually diminished, and the second round of labs confirmed that my liver levels were solidly back in a healthy range.

So here we are, at 37 weeks - all clear to deliver a baby, that as far as we know is healthy, but we most certainly know is loved.